


the intensity of desire

by lookoutlovers



Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst with a Happy Ending, Comfort, Communication, Fluff, Idiots, M/M, they are both as madly in love and stubborn as each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:13:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22878481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookoutlovers/pseuds/lookoutlovers
Summary: lucas and eliott decide to take a break. the principle had been there but, well, the execution is a little flawed.
Relationships: Eliott Demaury/Lucas Lallemant
Comments: 26
Kudos: 300





	the intensity of desire

**Author's Note:**

> this is loosely based off some very true and tragic events, @ my friend and his boyfriend who said they were taking a break, only for it to last literally two days because they got touch starved and couldn’t do it. i thought to myself: this is some elu level dumbass behaviour i need to write a fic. i hope u all enjoy!
> 
> also posted on [my tumblr](https://lumierelovers.tumblr.com/post/190998868292/the-intensity-of-desire-62k-lucas-and) and translated [here](https://ficbook.net/readfic/9099073) in russian ✨

> _"to burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves” — f ederico garcía lorca._

When Eliott first suggests it, Lucas feels a little like someone has just punched him in the gut.

 _Maybe we should just take a break, then,_ Eliott huffs, hand running exasperatedly over his face. Lucas blinks at him, startled, a tiny bit hurt. But he pushes the feeling away, swallows, watches as Eliott raises his eyebrows back in question, and responds with a composed but stubborn, _okay, if that’s what you think is best._

And so, they agree to spend some time apart.

It’s not like things between them are bad, this isn’t something unredeemable that calls for an immediate breakup. It’s just that Lucas doesn’t want things to get to that point. So, if it means they have time to think and to better themselves in order to come back together stronger, then, why wouldn’t they? It’s not like it’s permanent, it’s not like they don’t love each other anymore, or any less.

It’s temporary. _It will be good for them_ , is what Lucas tries to convince himself.

When Lucas breaks the news to his friends, it feels as though he has just been unleashed into a tank of a thousand angry sharks.

“You broke up?” Yann screeches, followed swiftly by an appalled, “ _What the fuck_!?”

Lucas sighs, trying and failing to fit a peculiar shaped casserole dish into the cupboard. “No, we’re taking a break,” he states calmly, “there’s a difference.”

And there is a difference. Despite the bewildered looks his friends exchange over his head—maybe because, to them, this is all very unexpected, maybe because Lucas had been too afraid to tell them about his and Eliott’s issues because talking about it makes it a _thing,_ and Lucas hadn’t been prepared for that.

The thing is it’s been harbouring for a while; the way they argue sometimes, the tiny white lies drawn solely from convenience. Eliott telling Lucas he had stayed late at work rather than just admitting he didn’t feel up to coming over. Lucas’ heart sinking every time Eliott goes to meet up with his artsy college friends who Lucas hasn’t been introduced to yet. And it was beginning to feel as though they were going around in circles, with the same argument seeming to resurface persistently, like they were stuck in a constant state of déjà vu. It’s just that communication can be difficult for them—with their combined trust issues and fear of being alone, it was always going to take a bit more effort on both ends to be able to meet in the middle.

It’s a sacrifice that they are both more than happy to make, and when they get there, in the end, it will be fine. It’s just the act of actually _getting there_ that is providing to be a lot more stressful than they initially prepared for. They will be okay; they just need some time to think about themselves. That, Lucas thinks, no matter how selfish it may sound, is maybe the most selfless things they could ever do for one another.

“So,” Arthur chimes in casually, “does that mean you can see other people, then. Or what?”

“What? No, that’s not—” Lucas’ stomach sinks. And it hits him, then, that they hadn’t actually talked about that. They had agreed to take a break, and Lucas had left Eliott’s apartment with the phantom touch of Eliott’s arms wrapped around his shoulders and lips against his forehead but no directions on how they’re supposed to go about this. It’s not like there’s a manual for these kinds of things. Lucas looks up from the dishwasher he had been inertly unloading, panic evident in his eyes as he asks, “Do you think Eliott will want to get with someone else?”

Yann is quick to shut down Lucas’ alarm, knowing full well Lucas’ issues with trust are still sometimes just as ripe as they had been in high school. “Of course not,” Yann tries to assure him.

“But we didn’t actually talk about that,” Lucas admits, hand clenching stressfully onto a spatula. “What if he thinks—”

Lucas’ thoughts begin to spiral. They hadn’t necessarily specified the rules of this break. Lucas doesn’t know what’s permitted, what’s off the tables, are they still allowed to see each other? Can they hang out? Can Lucas still text Eliott goodnight without it being weird? Or is that too much? Do they talk during group outings, or do they not talk at all?

The entire thing is already starting to feel all too overwhelming.

“Lucas,” Basile’s voice interrupts his inner meltdown. “Just call Eliott. Talk to him, set it straight. I’m sure everything will be fine. God knows you’ve both dealt with enough miscommunication to last you a lifetime.”

Basile is right, Lucas decides. The whole point of them taking a break is to start being better at communication.

So, Lucas does just that.

 _Hey,_ he writes in a text to Eliott later that evening, _are you free? Can we talk?_

Not long after, Eliott responds with, _just finishing up dinner with Idriss. Do you want me to come over?_

 _Please,_ Lucas replies, _just whenever you’re ready_.

An hour later, there’s a soft knock at Lucas’ bedroom door. He looks up from his laptop to see Eliott poking his head in.

“Hey,” he smiles sheepishly. He’s a little out of breath, hood still pulled over his head from the walk over. “Yann let me in.”

Lucas swallows nervously, hates that the feeling even begins to overcome him. Because it isn’t the usual nervousness he’s become so accustomed to feeling around his boyfriend of one year now—it’s more of a dark churning of dread, an unsettling sense of uncertainty.

Lucas hates it.

He ushers Eliott in, shutting his laptop as Eliott moves further into the room to settle onto Lucas’ bed.

“What did you want to talk about?” Eliott asks, voice apprehensive, his hands fidgeting relentlessly with the sleeves of his hoodie and Lucas thinks to himself, _you’re just as terrified of this as I am, aren’t you?_

Taking a deep breath, Lucas just lets the words spill out of him.

“So I know we said we were taking a break,” he begins, a little distracted by the way Eliott’s cheeks and the tip of his nose are still dusted with a pretty red tint from the cold outside. “But I just need to be clear on one thing. It doesn’t—” a sigh, “it doesn’t mean we can see other people, does it? Because the thought of that, it _kills_ me,” he explains.

Eliott is shaking his head before the words are even halfway out of Lucas’ mouth, eyes wide and slightly panicked. “ _God, no_ ,” he insists, twisting on the bed so that he’s facing Lucas better. “Of course not, Lucas. The thought of that kills me too. We may be on a break, but I wouldn’t think about even _looking_ in the direction of anyone else, I promise. I only want you.”

The words, spoken in their gentle and assuring state, fall from Eliott’s lips, and they are light as they travel between the short distance between them, drifting weightlessly in their manner, yet still holding a mass of significance. _I only want you._ They settle safely into the warmth of Lucas’ hands as he catches them. He keeps them there, carefully.

“Me too,” Lucas manages with a sigh of relief. “I only want you, too.”

Eliott smiles easily, his eyes now devoid of all previous wariness. “Good,” he whispers, although it’s so hushed Lucas barely registers the sound.

Unsurprisingly, Lucas finds himself getting lost in the curves of Eliott’s lips, the way his eyelashes catch onto the last golden streams of sunlight that cast in through Lucas’ bedroom window. Eliott must notice, because he tilts his head a fraction, eyes amused as he toys mindlessly with the edge of Lucas’ duvet.

And, naturally, Lucas thinks, _you’re beautiful,_ then, incidentally, he blurts out, “Do you want to stay and watch a movie?”

Eliott chuckles at the suddenness of it. “That isn’t very ‘ _on a break’_ of us,” he states.

“It’s only a movie.”

Eliott shifts, limbs folded over themselves a little awkwardly probably because he’s so used to sprawling himself over Lucas’ bed and not lingeringly awkwardly at the edge.

“Okay then,” he mumbles after a while of contemplation, “I’d like that.”

Lucas reaches for his laptop, tries to hide the ghost of a smile by pressing it into his shoulder. When he turns back, Eliott is still sat tensely at the ledge of the bed, and Lucas’ heart swells.

“Come here,” Lucas urges, softly, pulling the covers up as an invitation.

Warily, Eliott eyes Lucas for a few moments, as though he knows this isn’t what they should be doing right now, but he doesn’t quite want to say it. He eventually seems to come to a decision in his own head, and he crawls over to slip under the duvet next to Lucas. Close enough that their shoulders are touching, but not too close as to upset the new status of their relationship. Wholeheartedly, Lucas hates that. Hates that no matter how badly he aches to, he can’t touch, can’t snuggle in deeper. But, he reminds himself, this is okay. This is what they agreed to, what they need to do in order to make things right again.

After deciding on a movie— _Tangled_ because it’s Eliott’s favourite—Lucas flicks his bedside lamp off. Darkness consumes them, the room becomes swallowed in grey shadows, save for the soft glow of Lucas’ laptop screen. And it’s nice, being here, warm because it’s Eliott next to him.

But as the movie persists and the evening fades into night, their eyes become heavier, limbs sinking deeper into the bedsheets. Lucas vaguely thinks he hears Eliott murmur something along the lines of _I should probably go soon_. But the words fall flat, no true intent behind them as his head finds comfort in the space where Lucas’ shoulder meets his neck and the movie ends, and sleep wins the foregoing battle.

Lucas falls asleep with Eliott pressed into his side, and he wakes the next morning to a pair of arms wrapped firmly around his waist, light breaths on the skin of his neck and hair tickling his face.

And here Eliott is, not even one day after they decided to take a break, asleep next to Lucas in his bed, and Lucas thinks, a little shamefully, if there is a book of rules out there somewhere, this is definitely filed under the title of things _not_ to do. But he looks at the soft crease between Eliott’s brows, the slight pout of his lips as he sleeps, and, cuddling closer into him, decides that he doesn’t really care, in the end. Eliott’s arms are far too warm, and the familiar scent of boy and sweetness that’s now laced into Lucas’ bedsheets is far too alluring to deny himself of.

When Lucas walks Eliott out later that morning, Yann teases him relentlessly for it. Lucas flips him off as he returns to his bedroom, slumping back into bed with a sigh.

(And if this time he drifts off on the opposite side of the bed, only because it still smells of Eliott, it is really nobody’s business but his own.)

***

The sun is scintillating as Lucas steps out of the biology building on campus and begins to head towards the bus stop.

And he thinks, as he turns a corner only to be met with a face full of Eliott, and _Eliott, Eliott, Eliott,_ that the fact it is so bright out today has to mean something.

They stand close, startled as though cats caught under a headlight, and Eliott says, “Hi. Sorry.”

Lucas tilts his head. “What for?” He tries not to pay too much attention to the sudden outburst of Eliott’s familiar smell that almost entirely consumes him. Instead he focuses on points around them that aren’t Eliott’s lips, or his eyes, or the little imperfect dip to his nose that Lucas is so acquainted to tracing with his finger. He watches, intently, as a dainty little sparrow lands atop of the wall next to them, as the wind rustles the leaves at their feet, as a cyclist swerves around them and peddles into the distance.

He maybe tries a little too hard, as when Eliott speaks Lucas almost misses it.

“For nearly knocking you over,” he explains, like it’s obvious.

It is, Lucas thinks, it’s outrageously obvious and Lucas can’t think straight.

It’s only been a few days since they decided to take a break but the air around them feels foreign, distantly unusual, a bit like they’ve only just met. And Lucas’ mind is behaving in ways defiant—thinking of Eliott like that, as he stands opposite Lucas, obscuring the glare of the sun, yet, somehow, even bathed in shadow, still managing to outshine it entirely.

Lucas thinks about how devastating that would be, if he were to say aloud how beautiful Eliott looks right now only to be told that he shouldn’t have said it. He’s always been too weak, see, always giving in too quickly, too easily.

“It’s okay,” he breathes out. “Don’t worry.”

Eliott nods, hand clasping onto the strap of his backpack hard enough that the skin of his knuckles stretches until it turns white. Lucas’ mind, as unruly and disobedient as it always is, thinks of all the times those hands have grazed his skin, soft and wandering as they wake wordlessly; desperate and electric as a kiss catches alight. Lucas shakes his head to rid himself of the thoughts before they become treacherous, before he’s in too deep and can’t find his way out.

With the golden hour light that highlights his features, Eliott’s next words get lost somewhere in the forthcoming dusk air.

“I—what?” Lucas stutters, distracted, again.

“What are you doing right now?”

The distance between them, as short as it is, feels suddenly like too much. That is, with the way Eliott’s eyes exude a childlike excitement that Lucas knows by now is sure to end in a disaster for the both of them.

“Uh—just,” he pauses, briefly, “just heading home, why?”

Bouncing onto the balls of his feet, and then back down again, Eliott asks, “Can I take you somewhere?”

Lucas eyes him suspiciously, “Take me somewhere?”

Eliott nods.

“Like a date?” Lucas blurts.

A sigh. “No, not a date, Lucas,” Eliott frowns, extremely adamant about it. “As friends. I want to take you somewhere as a friend. Is that okay?”

 _As a friend._ “Okay.”

Eliott smiles and Lucas makes the mistake of looking into his eyes, then Eliott is taking him by the arm to tug him excitedly along the street and that familiar scent is everywhere, filling Lucas’ senses until he’s following Eliott even after his touch is gone, automatic like he’s addicted to it.

He thinks, distantly, that he probably is.

He lets Eliott guide him to a small coffee shop down a dingy little alleyway. Lucas complains about the smell they find there, sour and musky like damp. Eliott tells him to stop moaning, and when they enter the coffee shop, as the smell of damp is replaced with the overpowering aroma of coffee. Lucas doesn’t allow the thoughts that he would much prefer to go back to when all he could smell was Eliott take flight.

Those thoughts aren’t allowed anymore, not now, anyway—not as friends.

If Lucas could assign rooms to people, he decides, adamantly, as they enter, that this coffee shop would be Eliott. It is so undeniably Eliott that Lucas feels the air get knocked out of him. From the way the tables and chairs are mismatched yet perfectly so, to the overload of plants and greenery that hang from the ceiling, and the artwork that is displayed over every inch of every wall—it’s all Eliott and Lucas feels breathless.

Lucas follows Eliott to the counter, smiles at the girl working there who seems to already know Eliott’s name, and thinks, _this_. This is a part of Eliott that Lucas didn’t know before, a piece of himself that he had never offered up perhaps out of fear of completely letting go, maybe because showing someone every little piece of you is scary. But he’s showing Lucas, now, and that’s something that takes a lot of trust, something they promised each other they would try harder at.

The realisation hits Lucas—hard. So incredibly hard he finds himself gripping onto the edge of the countertop to stop himself from falling.

He almost misses it when Eliott says, “This is Lucas. The one I told you about, remember?”

The girl, black haired—but artificially so, if the lightness of the freckles that dust over every inch of her face are anything to go by—grins at Lucas, wide.

Lucas smiles back.

“The famous Lucas,” she says, almost just to herself. “I’ve heard so much about you! I’m Aurora.” She extends an arm, Lucas shakes her hand, eyes tracing the tattoos that take up most of the room on her skin.

“Aurora,” Lucas repeats. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Eliott tells her that he’ll have the usual, but to _make it two_ , and then he ushers Lucas over to a small table in the corner of the room.

“This place is really cool,” Lucas says, glancing around him once again.

Nodding, Eliott responds, “Yeah. I love it here.”

Mere seconds later, he’s speaking again. “And look,” he mumbles, twisting in his chair to point to the wall behind him. Lucas follows the movement, eyes landing on the paintings there. “They sell my work, too.”

He reveals it with a shy ounce of pride. It makes Lucas’ chest feel as though it’s going to burst at its seams, filled with far too much love for this one boy, in this tiny coffee shop down a dark alley in the middle of Paris and he’s burning with it. Lucas burns with the desire and the joy and the pride he has for being able to simply say he knows someone as phenomenal as this boy is. Lucas is so proud of him, he has no idea.

“Shit, Eliott,” Lucas breathes, voice light, sincere as he says, “that’s incredible.”

The smile Eliott gives him in return—full and vibrant and sweet—it’s beautiful.

***

“It’s seems to me—” Basile is saying, hands fumbling clumsily with the wires at the back of the television, “—that you’ve literally just made a bet with one another to see who will give in first and kiss the other person, or somthing.” He finally gets his x-box connected. “It seems like torture.”

“No,” Lucas frowns, insistent, “we’re spending some time apart so that we can think about how we’re going to move forward together.”

Looking up from behind the tv, Basile sends Lucas an incredulous look. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It so does.”

“You aren’t even spending any time apart, you’re still hanging out, like, every day.”

Basile is being unreasonable, Lucas thinks, squinting at his back from where he’s sitting on the couch. It hasn’t been _every day,_ more like every _other_ day, really.

“Not on purpose,” Lucas defends. The first time had been because he was literally _told_ by his friends to contact Eliott, and the other time had been entirely an accident. “ _Incidents happen.”_

Moving to sit next to Lucas on the sofa, hand out to demand he actually share the large bowl of popcorn he is nursing to his chest, Basile asks, “Alright. But do you really have to take a _break_ to fix whatever the fuck is going on?”

“Well. Yes—” Lucas has thought about this, see, there is only one reasonable explanation for the way he isn’t able to come to any rational decisions when he’s around Eliott, the reason why they can never fully resolve an argument, always brushed under the carpet, waiting to get brought up another day, “— _he’s distracting_.”

Basile gives in, after that, accepting that Lucas isn’t going to offer up any other justifications. Maybe because, they both know, that he has none.

“So,” Basile says after a while, “how are you going to rediscover yourself, then?”

“What?” Lucas scrunches his nose.

“Well, you have to rediscover yourself! That’s what couples do on breaks, is it not? You need to have some _me time_. Like—” his eyes, they’re riveted, Lucas can almost see the millions upon millions of ideas currently churning within his strangely astute head, “—what’s something you’ve always wanted to do but never had the time?”

The following day, Lucas signs up for extra credit astronomy classes.

And, the day after that, he goes to the class. The professor pulls him aside to tell him that be’s over the moon to have Lucas join the class, they learn about the movement of the moon and the planets, and how the moon’s orbit around the earth impacts the tides and causes eclipses when the sun and moon and earth align in just the right way. It’s _fascinating_. Lucas has never taken as many notes during a lecture in his entire life.

Although, that feeling, that _excitement_ , it gets stuck. It sits right at the very tip of his tongue, tingles restlessly on his fingertips, swirls impatiently inside of his chest.

Lucas leaves his class at six o’clock on a Friday evening and he finds that all he wants to do is tell Eliott about the entire thing.

The thing is, Fridays are _theirs_. Fridays are set aside for movie nights and cuddling and ordering ridiculous amounts of takeaway food. If Lucas is in class late on a Friday evening it eats into that time. But Lucas steps out into the brisk air and he thinks of how much he wants this, how badly he wants to learn about the planets and the universe and the stars, and he does, so badly.

He tells Eliott that.

“I want to start taking extra credit astronomy classes.”

Eliott, standing frozen with his hand around the door handle, startled because Lucas is here, unplanned (because, _you don’t have movie nights when you’re on a break_ , _right?_ ) announcing himself with that, almost stubbornly so. But after a few moments, Eliott’s confusion simmers, settling into a softer look of curiosity.

“Oh yeah?” His eyes are amused, yet kind.

Lucas nods assertively. “Only they’re scheduled for Friday evenings, which is when we have movie night, so I don’t want you to think I’m bailing, or whatever. This is just something I really want to do.”

Smiling, Eliott fists his hand onto the excess material of Lucas’ hoodie, tugging him out of the doorway and into the apartment, recklessly closer.

“That’s okay,” he says, “more than okay. We can just meet up an hour later than usual. We’ll still have the entire night.”

“Yeah?” Lucas asks, now standing in the middle of Eliott’s living room. He registers, briefly, the art supplies scattered over the coffee table, and now, the paint stains on Eliott’s face—blue high on his cheekbone and green by his bottom lip, rainbow drying on his hands.

Eliott nods, face lit up by the moonlight and the streetlamps that creep up the sides of the building and gaze in through the window.

He adds, though, it’s more of an afterthought, as he lowers himself back onto the floor to continue painting, Lucas following because watching Eliott paint is always his favourite thing to do, “Plus, I think I quite like the sound of having an astronaut boyfriend.”

Lucas rolls his eyes, unimpressed. “That’s not what that means and you know it.”

Eliott giggles, it’s enthralling.

There is a painting of Lucas on the table, blue on Eliott’s skin, a fire in Lucas’ heart.

***

Lucas is kiss starved.

It’s been one week since they decided to take a break and all Lucas can think about is how badly he wants to be kissed. Because as much as Lucas tries to convince himself that falling asleep together and cuddling hadn’t broken any rules, that coffee dates and painting together are justifiable, he also thinks to ask if kissing would be okay is pushing it a little.

He can already imagine the unimpressed look Eliott would give him at the mere suggestion of it.

The feeling starts off as an innocent yearning, but as Lucas stands in the kitchen of some random party late one Saturday night, Eliott talking animatedly with some friends across the room, it begins to overwhelm him to the point where his knees feel weak with it. Eliott stands there, dressed in all black because he _knows_ how much it drives Lucas crazy, his hair dark and messy, odd hues of colour washing over his features, and Lucas thinks, _I want you._ The thought, it’s reckless, recalcitrant, _ruinous_. But Lucas can’t control the way he moves towards Eliott as though caught by a magnetic force, how he aches for it, how the feeling plants a seed deep in his gut and it grows and grows and grows, flourishing until his chest is almost bursting, vines intertwined in the gaps of his ribcage and tightening their grip around his neck until he’s standing right in front of Eliott and—

And he can’t _breathe._

He stands in front of Eliott, completely sober because he had been too distracted all night to remember to pour himself another drink, and he asks, “Will you dance with me?”

Eliott, with his dark eyes and sunshine smile, stares back at Lucas under the flicker of blue lights for a beat too long. Lucas knows he’s being unreasonable, making things more difficult than they need to be, but, see, when Eliott suggested they take a break Lucas had known that he wouldn’t be able to stop his heart from taking control of the words he says or the things he does. It’s as though his heart, carved and shaped intricately to match the beat of Eliott’s own, can’t function any other way.

Maybe that’s why they needed to take a break in the first place—because they fell too hard, too deep. Always too deep. And that, loving someone that desperately, craving them that bad, _needing_ them that bad—it’s dangerous, _terrifying_.

Lucas doesn’t care.

They end up dancing together, in the end, because deep down, Eliott knows that, too, there is no way he can deny himself of the way Lucas’ hands fit so perfectly into the curve of his hips so effortlessly, like they were made to rest there.

It’s hours later, and Eliott is captivating. As he sits on the window ledge of one of the upstairs bedrooms, messily rolling a joint on his thigh, warm tones illuminating his face from the lamp by the bed, Lucas thinks, _how am I this lucky?_

“You know,” Eliott is mumbling, voice hoarse from belting too many lyrics, “this is the last of my weed, you should count yourself lucky that you’re getting to share it with me.”

 _I’m so lucky, you have no idea._ “Well, isn’t that kind of you,” he jokes lightly, instead.

With deep concentration, Eliott finishes rolling the joint, and Lucas opens the window because they aren’t animals. Time seems to ebb along even slower, as though they’re drifting within waves, swept up in a hazy current. Lucas can’t seem to look away from Eliott. His lips, his eyes, his hands; how he moves to pass Lucas the joint and the light catches his eyelashes, how he exhales and smoke curls lazily around his face, how his eyes are always the first feature to break through the cloud, dark and alluring.

Lucas inhales at the same time Eliott exhales, and it’s too much. Eliott is too close but he’s too far, Lucas’ head is swimming but he feels like his body is drowning. The air is smoke tainted and irresistible, they giggle but they’re relaxed, Lucas’ next words are only a result of this, of the fog in his system.

“I want to kiss you so badly.”

Eliott is mid-exhale, Lucas follows the movement like a cat chasing a rope, focused, infatuated. He shifts, Eliott does, and he balances the joint on the ledge of the open window.

“Lucas—” he pauses, eyebrows knitted together, frowning.

Lucas’ breath staggers, “ _Please_ ,” he needs it, so badly, more than anything, _tremendously._

Maybe that’s a little unfair of him, to beg like that, to plead. But Eliott doesn’t seem to care, in the end, he leans forward, gathering Lucas up in his arms and onto his lap. Lucas’ breath hitches as he straddles him, he thinks, as Eliott tilts his head to look up at him, as Lucas swipes away the strands of hair that have fallen over Eliott’s forehead, that he’s the most beautiful person Lucas has ever seen.

“You’re beautiful,” Eliott says it first, as though Lucas hadn’t already been thinking it.

Lucas shakes his head, “ _You’re_ beautiful,” insistent.

Eliott kisses him, hard, but his hands, as they roam Lucas’ body, are soft. Nerves dance up Lucas’ spine at the way Eliott’s tongue swipes across his bottom lip, how his fingertips dig into Lucas’ sides, before wandering to his cheeks, thumbs pressing into the skin there just to feel, lips slotting together just to taste. Lucas grips onto the hair at the nape of Eliott’s neck and sighs into the kiss, and it feels as though the entire room sighs with him, a breath of relief— _finally._

“I think that—” a pleased hum against lips, “—this completely defeats the purpose of taking a break.”

“Don’t care,” Lucas grumbles.

It’s difficult to care, when Eliott is this captivating, this addicting, _enthralling_.

They kiss, and kiss and kiss, and Lucas falls, _drowns_ , gets lost in the waves and the deep greyish blue of Eliott’s eyes. And he lets himself.

Eliott laughs lightly, whispers, “You’re impossible.”

Lucas hums. “I know, thank you,” and to Eliott, it’s the funniest thing in the world. Lucas catches his smile with another kiss.

He thinks, _I love you,_ but also that to really say it is probably the most unfair thing he could do right now, here, in this moment, when they shouldn’t really be kissing in the first place. When he’s already asked for too much.

Pressing the words into Eliott’s lips instead, Lucas tells himself that it’s enough.

***

The next morning, Lucas wakes up and he feels warm.

Like flickers of sun melting into his skin, Eliott shifts next to Lucas, pressing a soft sound into the sheets as he stirs awake, and Lucas’ chest feels lighter than it ever has.

But there’s a weight there too.

“We fucked up,” is the first thing he says to Eliott when his eyes eventually flutter open against the morning light.

There’s an addled tilt to Eliott’s lips, eyes dazed with sleep.

Lucas fists his hands into the duvet to stop himself from reaching out and running his fingers through Eliott’s bedhead. “We need to start taking this break more seriously,” Lucas insists when Eliott doesn’t respond.

Humming nonsensically, Eliott nods, but it’s flippant and completely contradicted by the way he reaches out to wrap his arms around Lucas’ waist, pulling him closer.

“Seriously, Eliott,” Lucas whines, twisting away, “this isn’t going to work if we keep seeing each other.”

There’s another hum pressed into the skin of Lucas’ neck. This one is satirical, _taunting._ Like he can see how desperately Lucas is trying to convince _himself_ of his own words, like he’s waiting for Lucas to just fall at his command. _Be quiet,_ is what it says, _I’m comfortable._

Lucas wants to prove him wrong, show him that he can do this, _he can_. For them, he can.

“Okay,” Lucas sighs, removing himself from Eliott’s arms, speaking calmly, “I’m going to get changed, and then I’m going to go home, and we’re going to try and do this properly.”

Watching Eliott carefully, as though he’s a wild animal, untamed and ready to pounce the second Lucas looks away, Lucas pauses for a few moments. Eliott doesn’t say anything, only looks back at Lucas from the bed, swallowed in blankets, hair a wreck, eyes innocent but his lips pulled out into a knowing smile.

Lucas shoves his clothes on rather inelegantly. It’s hard not to when Eliott is watching him with _that look_ , when the ghost of the things Eliott had said to him last night, the things he had _done,_ still sit so transparently against Lucas’ skin.

When he leaves, it’s with a heavy heart, one that is less kissed starved than before, but yet, somehow, still as much so.

***

_Desire_ , it grows with time apart. It’s a longing, something you gravitate towards. It’s this extraordinary, magnificent thing that has caught your attention, something that you don’t ever want to live without.

Lucas wakes up one morning and the air feels cold. Cold like the ice that creeps up the window, like last night’s unfinished tea on his nightstand, like the empty space in the bed next to him, the absence of arms around his waist, of skin against skin.

Frighteningly cold, as though there is something missing—that one thing Lucas can’t live without.

He goes to Eliott’s place not long after he showers, and standing in the doorway, a little like the last time, urgent and breathless with it, he says, “We need to reconsider this.”

“This?” Eliott’s confusion, albeit adorable, is frustrating.

Lucas sighs, pushing himself further into the apartment.

“This break,” he clarifies, “it isn’t working.”

Eliott’s eyes sweep over Lucas, wide and discernibly terrified as they stand opposite one another in Eliott’s kitchen.

“What—you mean—” There’s something in the pan, it hisses. And _no_ that’s not—

“ _No,_ ” Lucas is quick to interject, _not us_. He steps forwards until he’s right in front of Eliott by the counter and Eliott has nowhere to go, nowhere else to look but the sincerity in Lucas’ eyes. “I mean that I can’t stand it anymore, not being with you. I don’t know how to do it, Eliott, _fuck,_ I don’t know how to not be with you. I _hate_ not being with you. Maybe that’s reckless, careless, even. Maybe that’s unhealthy. I don’t care,” he shakes his head frantically, “I don’t.”

Softly, Eliott chuckles, eyes falling shut along with a downwards tilt to his head. When he looks up, his eyes are entirely amused. “You know,” he murmurs, “I was waiting for you to get over your damn stubbornness.”

He’s ridiculous, this boy. Lucas folds his arms, face hard but voice light as he says, “Fuck you. You knew I wouldn’t be able to do it.” Eliott only smiles, adoringly. Lucas huffs.

“I regretted it as soon as I suggested it,” Eliott is saying, “but you agreed, so I thought, we might as well try it, yeah?” Lucas blinks at him, blinks until Eliott shrugs and turns to attend to whatever monstrosity he has cooking in the pan. He shakes his head, still with his back to Lucas. “It was a terrible idea,” he admits, and pan set aside, finally, Eliott turns. The morning sun fades over his skin, forms a pretty halo of light over his head, it’s very fitting, Lucas thinks. “I hate not being with you, too.”

“You’re an idiot,” Lucas takes a step closer, a sheepish silence falling over them until Lucas breaks it again. “We don’t really have to take a break to fix this, do we?”

Hands fist into the sides of Lucas’ sweater, and he’s being pulled even closer. It’s that magnetic force again, sweeping him entirely off his feet, right into the centre of Eliott’s chest; Lucas places his hands over it, feels Eliott’s heartbeat there, the solid yet gentle thump under the pressure of his fingertips.

When Eliott speaks, it’s hushed, “There is nothing to fix, my love,” he assures, softly, wholeheartedly, a hand brushing through Lucas’ hair, along his cheek. “We had an argument, and maybe we need to work on a few things. But there is nothing wrong with us. _Nothing_.”

Lucas’ smiles, he thinks of the bad days, but only briefly, because then he’s looking into Eliott’s eyes, the soft look on his face, and he’s reminded of all the good days. And there are so many, they are countless, _infinite._ Lucas can’t imagine a life without those days, without Eliott.

“I love you,” Lucas whispers, sighing when Eliott rests their foreheads together with a smile. The tips of their noses brush, Lucas fists his hand into the material of Eliott’s t-shirt, right where his heart lays, just to have him closer, always closer. “We’ll be okay.”

Eliott kisses him. Lucas basks in the way he wraps his arms around Lucas’ neck, closer and closer and closer, and then in the way he mumbles, lovingly, between kisses, “I love you so much. So much.”

Eventually, when they separate, maybe minutes, hours, or even days later, Eliott presses one last kiss to Lucas’ forehead, and he offers him some of the eggs he had made, to which Lucas replies, _I think I’m good for food poisoning today, but thank you_ , earning himself a firm squeeze of the hip.

Lucas looks at Eliott, light in his eyes and a fire in his heart, and he thinks, _I am never going to live a single day without you ever again._

He means it.

**Author's Note:**

> come yell or cry with me [@lumierelovers](https://lumierelovers.tumblr.com/) thank u for reading! let me know what u think <3
> 
> [ficpost](https://lumierelovers.tumblr.com/post/190998868292/the-intensity-of-desire-62k-lucas-and)


End file.
